Gov. Paterson

A plan to rescue millions of straphangers from sky-high fare hikes and widespread service cuts suddenly veered off track in Albany Tuesday night, sources said.

Sources familiar with the talks between Gov. Paterson's office, the Assembly and the state Senate said it became unclear that Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith could get a package passed - even without tolls on the city's free bridges.

"It's falling apart at the seams," one source said, adding that some Senate Democrats also appeared to be balking at the employer-paid payroll tax part of the plan.

Tolling the East and Harlem river bridges was taken off the table Tuesday because a handful of Senate Democrats, like Brooklyn's Carl Kruger, said they wouldn't vote for tolls, calling them unfair to motorists from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.

Now the plan is in jeopardy because some suburban Democrats are wavering under the heat from school districts that would see expenses rise with a payroll tax in the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's 12-county region.

It's the scenario transit officials feared would happen if the original rescue plan - released in December by a commission headed by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch - began to be picked apart and not passed basically unaltered.

Even if Paterson, Smith (D-Queens) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) come to terms on the bailout and introduce legislation, the problem is Senate Democrats have a razor-thin 32-to-30 majority. All of the Democrats must vote for a package unless there's some Republican support.

In another development Tuesday, sources said a new revenue-raising provision was being discussed - charging taxicab passengers an additional 50 cents a trip.

Drivers and passengers alike jeered the idea of a taxi surcharge.

"I don't like the idea at all. The economy is way down, it's a terrible time to be doing this," said Jeff Berman, 65, of Manhattan, waiting to hail a cab on Ninth Ave.

Brooklyn cabbie Mustapha Baalla, 44, said: "It's going to come from passengers' pockets and nobody is going to take a cab anymore. It's going to go from cab drivers' tips."

The MTA faces massive budget gaps in both its operating and capital construction budgets and is weeks away from imposing fare hikes of up to 30% and launching the first of a series of drastic service cuts.

Meanwhile, politics and a health scare played havoc with the state budget vote Tuesday night, as the midnight deadline passed without a new deal in place.

The Assembly had passed all of the nine budget bills by the deadline.

Things were more chaotic in the Senate, where the Republicans deliberately held up the proceedings for hours by failing to enter the chamber.

Once they did show up, in midafternoon, a much-feared Democratic nightmare scenario began to unfold.

Sen. Ruth Hassell-Thompson (D-Bronx, Westchester) was taken from the Senate floor to a local hospital, where she was diagnosed with walking pneumonia, officials said. Because of her absence, Senate Democrats did not have the necessary 32 votes to pass the budget bills.

With all 30 Republicans set to vote against the budget, Democrats had only 31 votes Tuesday, one short of the required majority.

At 7:15 p.m., about an hour after the Senate began debating the first budget bill, Hassell-Thompson returned via ambulance, but got out herself and walked inside.

While her colleagues debated one bill for nearly four hours, the ailing senator rested on a couch in a room off the Senate floor, with paramedics at her side.

When it came time to vote on the bill, Hassell-Thompson walked to her seat to a standing ovation.

"I couldn't disappoint my colleagues," she said afterward.

She said she will be back Wednesday, when the Senate is expected to give final approval to a record $132 billion budget that raises as much as $8 billion in taxes.